I thought I wasn't supposed to run out of time for projects? The day got away from me again. I started in the direction of going to pull some weeds around my vertical antenna, but I also wanted to get a look at something on my everyday ride bike. I've been having intermittent troubles with the rear brake and given that it's the original equipment on a 2005 bike, I thought I should also look at the brake pads. Which means taking the back wheel off.
In the process of taking the wheel off, I had to take the chain off.
Well, it devolved into a partial tear down, clean, de-grease, re-grease and
maintenance of the whole drive train. OK, most of the drive
train. Would you believe some of the drive train? By the
time I could get out to pull weeds, the thunderstorms were rolling in.
The weeds will have to wait - and grow a little more after the watering.
While having dinner, I decided to give a try to a movie on Amazon Prime video that I'd seen the trailer for, called A Million Miles Away. It's a biopic about an immigrant engineer named José Hernandez who devoted his adult life to becoming an astronaut. When I test a movie like that, I'll start watching with the idea that if there isn't something that catches me, or there is something that absolutely "turns me off", I'll shut it off and "fuggedaboutit" - while if it's OK but barely catches my attention, it goes in the "maybe come back later" limbo.
Here's the trailer:
The star of the movie is one of my favorite guys from the Marvel Universe, Michael Peña, who plays a minor character named Luis in the first two Ant Man movies but takes absolute command of the set when he's onscreen. This role is completely unlike the Ant Man movies and I think he shows respectable acting.
There are one or two hints about this in the trailer but while there's a little of "I started out as a poor child" / "oh, poor, pitiful me" narrative, by and large the message is if you want something, figure out what you need to do and work toward the goal. There's no "I'm better than you just because" to it at all. If you're behind, work harder. If others get picked ahead of you, figure out what they have that you don't or what they did that you didn't and work on that. José Hernandez' father gives a five step method when José is elementary school age, and the movie follows it faithfully.
Overall, worth the two hours watching it.
Michael Pena is a treasure.
ReplyDeleteThey threw him into The Martian too, and he did well with that part, as usual.
He's one of those guys who's going to go from character actor to main man, eventually.
If Hollywood ever gets its collective head out of its @$$ and gets back to work.
Certainly has to be better than most of what passes for entertainment these days.
ReplyDeleteWhen I retired I figured I had three years of projects lined up. It has been over two years since retirement and I have been darn busy, and I have at least three years of projects lined up... I think projects breed when you're not looking.
ReplyDeleteFor entertainment in the morning, I watch the local traffic report and see how badly traffic is backed up to the naval base.
ReplyDeleteYou sadistic bastich!
DeleteJust like me!!
Projects decrease in number and scope as we get older (Im 80).
ReplyDeleteAs said above, I didn't realize we would be this busy in retirement.
ReplyDeleteI'd seen the teaser for the movie, and we will give it a chance.
Sorry, I cannot stomach any movies that show some segment of society that refers to themselves (to each other) as 'our people'. This type of drivel just further divides us - but maybe that's its purpose?
ReplyDeleteYour description of your day is exactly how almost all of my days go. The ones I don't decide to stay on the couch and read a book, that is. I can go out to the pantry in the shop to get a box of cereal and end up getting involved in four things that "have to be done" before I get back to the house.
ReplyDeleteIt's only about a hundred feet.
I went and read the Wikipedia page for Jose Hernandez. After reading that, I don't know if I will watch the movie. Hernandez is a hard core leftist. He serves as a Regent for the University of California. He advocates uncontrolled immigration from Mexico. While for most of the editors of Wikipedia, his leftism is to be glorified, it puts me off.
ReplyDeleteEach to his own. I noticed two lines in the two hours that sounded leftist to me. The rest of it was, if anything, a movie extolling a good work ethic, like I talked about in the last paragraph. I didn't look up anything on the movie or any character in it in advance.
DeleteOf course, I could always be wrong, so I asked my wife if she noticed anything about it, and she didn't Still, I would never say because I liked something anyone else should/would. We both could be pretty immune to attempts to trigger us.
It may be worth the watch then. I appreciate a good work ethic, and it sounds as though Hernandez has it. I can let the other stuff go if the movie is reasonable. I only looked him up initially to see his level of participation in manned space flight.
DeleteThis is as good a place as any to post this: Space.com did an interview with José Hernandez and the movie's director Alejandra Márquez Abella. It's a worthwhile followup.
DeleteDirector Abella had Hernandez in a cameo in the movie, as one of the "pad rats" who help the astronauts into the shuttle. Of course, watching the movie I had no idea who that was, since I knew nothing about him.
Abella: I wanted to have José in the film and that was the best choice as he was doing that back then.
Hernández: That's right. I was a "Cape Crusader," so I did that job for seven launches. But hey, you can just call me Stan Lee. (laughs)